Published on January 16, 2024
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Do you waddle when you walk?
Research shows that every pound of body weight causes three pounds of force that your feet must absorb when walking, seven pounds when running. That means a 200-pound person’s feet would be subject to 600 pounds of force per step and 1,400 pounds of force when running.
It’s no wonder that one of the foot problems I hear about from clients is that they started to walk differently.
Unlike a four-legged animal, we do not have the luxury of having three legs to hold us up while we move the fourth.
Walking for us is a repeated process of a controlled fall with the other leg catching us and pushing into the next fall so the first leg can catch. Lather, rinse, repeat.
A human being was not designed to carry twice and three times their normal body mass regularly and still walk as if they’re at a normal body mass.
It’s when one carries a load on their back or carries something heavy with their arms in front of them (try it and see) that one must shift their weight from side to side as they balance on one leg at a time so as not to teeter-totter the other way.
This is just one of the ways that being overweight or obese affects your feet and causes a disturbance in the way you walk.
